A very intersting site. My Great Grandfather was John Lycett born 1828(Not1826)son of William(1788-1839) John married Emma Leigh of Old Hall Farm, Castle Street, Chesterton. John died in 1862 and was buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard. I was born in Chesterton in 1927 and lived there until 1957.

1901 Census of Saddleworth. - A 'Lizzie Lysett' aged 33 - born Wharton, Cheshire - Servant in the household of George A Watkins - Oil Manufacturer at Grasscroft in Saddleworth. 1901Census.

Lizzie was born on the 9th May 1867 in Wharton. Her father is recorded as a carpenter. Her birth is registered by her mother S.A. Lycett of Wharton on the 25th May 1867 in the registration district of Northwich in the sub-district of Over in the County of Chester.

We know that the Lycett family for some time were 'Wealthy Gentry' living in Wheelock House. They owned and managed a saltworks. It is said the family lived the high life beyond their means, having to sell Wheelock House and move into the more humble 'Brook Villas' in Wheelock. Our own ancestor, Robert, was born and brought up in Wheelock House. He went to Sandbach Grammer School on a horse, accompanied by a groom carrying his books. His family thought he married 'beneath him' to Lena Broad. He & Lena lived with the Lycett family in Brook Villas until he died in 1905, when Gerald was 5 years and Edna was 3 years. The Lycetts then turned Lena and the children out to a life of extreme poverty.

- William Lycett (1788-1839) had 9 children with his wife Fances. When he died (aged 57) Frances was only 39 and she soon married John Simmill (1798-1869) and had 2 more children: Eliza (19 Oct 1842) and Louisa (11 Nov 1846) when she was aged 42 and 46. Frances died in 1873 aged 73

Abraham Marland left Mossley in 1793 to work in London for 4 years. He married Mary SYKES on 3rd February 1800. They with son Thomas Marland emigrated from Liverpool aboard the ship "Two Pollies" on the 9th July 1801, arriving Boston, Massachusetts on 17th September 1801. Abraham Marland was a Textile Manufacturer and Mill Owner in Andover, Massachusetts.

Mary Mather was a tireless campaigner for the rights of women and disadvantaged people in Britain and abroad. Born in Blackburn, Lancashire, she attended Folkstone county school for girls in Kent and went to study English at Girton College, Cambridge in 1944. She edited the Cambridge University socialist club bulletin. During the holidays she worked as a volunteer at Kingsley Hall in Bromley-by-Bow where she fell under the spell of the Lester sisters, Muriel and Doris, who had founded the community settlement with the aim of bringing people together regardless of class, race or religion.

In 1949 she was appointed lecturer in English at the University of Hong Kong. She had wanted to go to China from a young age, particularly having heard Muriel Lesterís travel stories. Her plans to travel into mainland China were thwarted by the communist revolution. The friendships she formed with her Chinese students and the writer Han Suyin did not endear her to the university authorities. She returned to London in 1953 to live in Canning Town womenís settlement in Plaistow, working in a sugar factory and teaching at the Keir Hardie primary school.

Active in the West Ham Labour Party during the 1950s and 60s, she got to know Elwyn Jones, who was appointed attorney general by Harold Wilson in 1964, and wrote speeches for him. She also ran equal opportunities courses for magistrates, but was turned down as a magistrate herself because MI5 had a file about her leftwing activities in Hong Kong.

In 1960, after another failed attempt to get into China during the Hundred Flowers campaign, she travelled in India with her father and joined Vinoba Bhave and other Gandhians trying to persuade landowners to give some of their land to those who had none (Bhoodan movement).

From 1966 to 1994 she lectured at the South Bank Polytechnic. In West Ham she established the first community relations council in the country, and for many years she ran a club which met twice a week for girls whose parents had recently arrived from the Indian subcontinent. Their crowning glory was a famine lunch where their meeting place, Durning Hall in Forest Gate, was transformed into an Indian Village complete with sand and saris. John Rowley remembers her:

I met Mary first at a Summer School in the Abbey in the mid 90s. Thereafter, we had a few words at many Gandhi Foundation events and each time I felt an instant rapport with her. She was always quick to smile, ready to banter and very perceptive. I thought of her as a dedicated, radical, academic, practical, social reformer.

Mary became actively involved with the Gandhi Foundation at the beginning of the new millennium when she suggested we might like to support a group of five villages in Orissa whose inhabitants had been displaced by a dam. She had come across them when she inquired of Bhoodan villages from Vinobaís time. The GF gave financial support until 2005 when Mary felt that sufficient progress had been made by the villagers for them to no longer need outside help.

Her nephew Ian Mather (whose obituary of Mary in The Guardian supplied much of this appreciation) said of her: Constantly fascinated by what was going on in the world, yet frequently absent-minded when it came to day-to-day practicalities, she had a unique ability to make people feel special and was adored by family and friends alike.

Mary Mather was educated at Folkestone County School for Girls and came up to Girton (Cambridge) to read English 1944-47 (MA 1955). After a variety of posts (including research, lecturing in Hong Kong, teaching and personnel assistant at Marconi), she became a Senior Lecturer and Head of Organisational Behaviour at South Bank Polytechnic in 1966, moving to consultancy and training co-ordination for their Centre for Management Studies in 1989. She was also Chair of the London Borough of Newham Community Relations Council and Editor of 'West Ham Citizen'. In 1974 she studied for an MSc in Economics at London University, for which she received a Distinction. Her research areas are race relations and equal opportunites.

The papers consist of three issues of CUSC (Cambridge University Socialist Club) Bulletin (volume 12, issues 2, 3 and 4 published on 25 Jan., 1 Feb. and 8 Feb. 1947) for which Mary Mather was editor during her time at Girton.

1881 - John Mathew (Woollen Weaver) age 26, Boarder with the Furness Family at Census night, must have migrated to USA with the family in 1881,
eventually married Jane Ann Furness on 17th November 1888 - Son of Samuel Mathew & Elizabeth Schofield of Saddleworth

NOTES on JOHN MATHEWS of Saddleworth - (1855 - 1897)

Hi Trevor,
†
Picked up a little more information last week about Jane Furness and John Mathews. John Mathew was buried in the Furness family plot in the Springs Cemetery in Stafford, so I got a copy of his death certificate and went through the archives at the town hall. John died 16th. June 1897 in Stafford Springs, Connecticut. He was living with his in-laws, the Furness family. Born in England to Samuel Mathews and Elizabeth Schofield. Cause of death was Addison's disease and chronic endocarditis, which he suffered from for 1 1/2 years. He was a mill hand in the Warren Woollen Mills in Stafford Springs, Connecticut.

John Mathew was married to Jane "Jenny" Furness on 17th. November 1888 by Rev. F. D. Buckley, the rector at the Grace Episcopal Church in Stafford Springs.
On 8th. December 1895, their son, Stephen J. Mathews was born at their home on Furnace Avenue, Stafford Springs, delivered by Dr. C. H. David.
I will be trying to find the place of death of Jane when I have time. It was written in the family Bible that she died in Monson, Massachusetts, so I'll have to go there.
Robert Welsh, her second husband, must have had his six children before he met Jane.
†

- Verified from Radcliffe Marriage Registers (Entry: 3735) - St. Chad's Marriage Register - 1787 - Page: 88 - 4th February 1787 - THOMAS LAWTON, of this Parish, and BETTY MAYALL of the same place, Spinster - Married in this Chapel by Banns Published this Fourth Day of February 1787 By Me: E Taylor (Curate) - Thomas Lawton signed the register and Betty Mayall made her Mark X - In the presence of James Lawton and James Robinson.